In the never-ending battle to add more end-user value, the
focus among automotive component and car manufacturers
has turned to improving safety and control for vehicles. Driver
assistance, collision prediction and avoidance, lane-departure
warning, and electronic stability control (ESC) are just some of
the systems getting a lot of attention these days.

However, “value” isn’t the only driving force behind these
technological pursuits. Government mandates are putting the
hammer down on manufacturers. Many of these requirements
involve “greener” cars with higher fuel efficiency and reduced
harmful engine emissions.

Both automotive IC suppliers and tier 1 suppliers see potentially
large markets in automotive safety and control. All sorts
of active and passive safety systems are in the works. According
to several industry research firms, there’s large market potential
in automotive electronics for safety and control. In fact, sensors, actuators, microprocessors, memories,
field-programmable gate arrays (FPGAs), microcontrollers
(MCUs), and DSPs should see greater use in automotive
safety and control systems. The trend is to increase the use of
semiconductor ICs beyond control functions and into active
and passive safety systems.

Increased use of real-time vision systems for advanced safety
techniques has called for greater vision-processing capabilities.
By installing cameras on cars and using high-performance
image processors, auto manufacturers can implement systems
for lane tracking, traffic-sign recognition, and parking assistance.
When combined with radar, more robust obstacle detection
becomes possible.

Microelectromechanical
systems (MEMS) will see wide use in safety, fuel-economy,
and convenience functions. “The need to consider the ‘system’ in
MEMS is key to the success in introducing many sensor functionalities
into vehicles,” says Roger Grace of Roger Grace Associates.

“This is clearly demonstrated by tire-pressure management
systems (TPMSs), where an application-specific IC (ASIC) can
provide many functions, including temperature compensation,
control, battery management, and possibly even the transmit function
to the display monitor in the vehicle cockpit,” Grace adds.

He also notes that a major obstacle for MEMS IC suppliers
of devices for safety, control, fuel-economy, and convenience
functions is to meet the enormous cost pressures imposed by car
manufacturers and tier 1 suppliers, while delivering 100,000-mile,
10-year parts lifetime performance.

The challenge for auto makers is to add enhanced safety, comfort,
and intelligence elements to their products while lowering
costs. As cars take on more sensors and microcontrollers, the move
is to implement “sensor fusion.” That involves integrating all of
these ICs into central modules, which ultimately reduces complexity,
lowers costs, and creates a safer driving experience.

Marc Osajda, Freescale Semiconductor’s global automotive
marketing manager, concurs with this trend. He also sees MEMS
sensors enabling cost-effective and efficient ESC: “We see an
emerging trend of sensor fusion that integrates passive and active
systems for more intelligent vehicle control and a better understanding
of a car’s environment. There are developments ongoing
in sensor communications standardization to make all sensors
compatible with an electronic control unit (ECU).”

Working with tier 1 supplier Continental, Freescale developed
a custom MCU for ESC called SPACE (Superior Processor for
Automatic Control in Electronic braking). The 32-bit electronicbraking
system is said to be the industry’s first triple-core MCU
design to integrate Freescale’s Power Architecture e200 cores with
Continental’s fail-safe electronic braking system.

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A notable development in sensor fusion is the Combined Active
and Passive Safety (CAPS) system from Bosch (Fig. 1). The
modular system networks active and passive safety systems with
assistance systems to reduce the risk of an accident and increase
protection for a car’s occupant(s). Future versions will include
integrated driver information systems.

One of the most advanced automotive roll-control systems,
the Active Stabiliser Bar System (ASBS), was developed by tier 1
supplier Delphi. It delivers a better steering feel, improved vehicle
dynamics, superior comfort, and greater tuning capability compared
with existing approaches, according to Delphi.

Microcontrollers like the AMIS-30623 smart stepper-motor
driver from AMI Semiconductor are also enhancing automotive
safety by controlling movable headlamp motors. Adding vertical,
horizontal, and advanced front-lighting motor control to automotive
headlamps, which are traditionally in a fixed position, results
in greater safety for a car’s occupants.

Vertical control helps the driver avoid the glare of an oncoming
car’s headlight. When linked to a car’s suspension system, it allows
the beams from headlamps to maintain correct positioning for
different loads and road conditions. Horizontal control provides
improved lighting by illuminating the appropriate part of road
curves. With advanced front lighting, the headlight beam can be
controlled based on the car’s steering and suspension dynamics, as
well as ambient weather and visibility conditions, car speed, and
road curvature and contour.

LOWERING THE COST OF RADAR CHIPS
Radar chips are critical elements for collision detection, collision
avoidance, and lane-departure warning systems. The high
cost of these IC chips, generally made on a gallium-arsenide
(GaAs) process, does create a bit of an obstacle, though. As a
result, some semiconductor companies are beginning to experiment
with silicon CMOS and silicon germanium (SiGe).

Strategy Analytics sees SiGe and CMOS displacing GaAs for
automotive radar. It predicts that while GaAs technology will still
be dominant over the next few years, all major tier 1 automotivesystems
companies will move to silicon technologies, and silicon
will ultimately take over the market starting from 2013 onward.

Delphi uses an ACC3 76-GHz forward-warning radar sensor
module for collision detection and warning (Fig. 2). The mechanically
scanned unit has a 150-nm range, a 15° field of view, and a
100-ms update rate.

The effectiveness of crash-warning systems, which generally
use radar, was tested with a laser-based system developed last
year at the U.S. National Institute of Standards and Technology
(NIST). The goal was to accelerate the development and commercialization
of automotive safety systems. NIST used an independent
measurement system consisting of cameras and microphones
mounted in the cab of a truck. It can also be mounted in a car.

A leading provider of GaAs radar chips is U.K.-based e2V. Its
77-GHz chips are being used mostly by Bosch in Europe for adaptive
cruise control and for adaptive control of the braking system
(Fig. 3). “With the possibility of Delphi, we believe that we’re the
only ones using a Gunn diode approach in our radar chips,” says
Ian Duke, head of automotive electronics. “We hope to see adaptive
cruise control as standard equipment on cars, not just as an option.”

The long-range radar chips from e2V are used in Bosch’s predictive
systems, which consist of a radar sensor and an integrated
ECU. Such a system recognizes critical situations in front of a car
as well as the active safety system brake force. The brake system is
preconditioned to provide drivers with the fastest response time.

If the driver fails to take action, a symbol flashes on the instrument
panel, an acoustic signal is emitted, and a short brake “jolt” is
provided—all within enough time to give the driver time to react.
Even when a collision is unavoidable, automatic braking takes
over to reduce the severity of an accident’s impact.

Last year, Infineon Technologies began sampling a range of
76- to 77-GHz SiGe ICs, dubbed the RASIC, that could bring long- and medium-range automotive radar to mid-size cars by
the middle of 2010. Volume production is being planned for
mid-2009. The first in the series is the RXN7740 integrated chip
set, which includes an oscillator, a power amplifier, and four mixers
for multiple antennas.

Infineon says its integrated solution will shrink the size of existing
discrete-component-based radar systems to one-fourth of present
sizes and will reduce system cost by more than 20%. The chip
set was developed with the help of Germany’s Federal Ministry of
Education and Research (BNBF) as part of the KOKON project.
The project allows for temporary use in Europe of 24-GHz shortrange
radar in combination with 76.5-GHz long-range radar until
2013. After that, 79-GHz short-range radar must be developed.

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Freescale Semiconductor is also examining SiGe radar chips.
“We’re developing a 77-GHz SiGe technology for collision warning
and avoidance, which we expect to have by no later than 2012.
We’re also developing microcontrollers for this,” says Matthieu
Reze, Freescale’s marketing manager for automotive products.

The European Union, under its Information and Communication
Technologies (IST) 6th Framework Program, is working on
a REPOSIT (relative positioning for collision avoidance systems)
project. The objective is to demonstrate the feasibility of new
technologies for collision-avoidance systems. These include the
use of ultrasonics, lasers, video, and microwave radars.
Short-range radar has demonstrated its effectiveness in a variety
of applications. These include adaptive cruise control with stop
and go functionality, collision avoidance and mitigation, blindspot
monitoring, reverse and forward parking assistance, lanechange
assistance, and rear-crash collision warning (Fig. 4).

Researchers at the University of Florida and the Semiconductor
Research Corp. reported progress on an automotive radar system
based on 130-nm CMOS technology. They suggest that a CMOS
radar chip can be produced for about $10, making it an attractive
option for automotive uses. A CMOS low-noise amplifier and
a 50-GHz sine-wave generator that uses a phase-locked loop
(PLL) for oscillator stability was already demonstrated.

Fujitsu Labs is developing a CMOS technology for millimeterwave
radar. At this year’s IEEE International Solid State Circuits
Conference (ISSCC), it reported on the first CMOS-based power
amplifier that operates at 77 GHz, with 8.5 dB of gain and 6.3 dBm
of saturated output power. Another 60-GHz amplifier was developed
with 8.3 dB of gain and 10.6 dBm of saturated output power.

TEAMING UP WITH VIDEO
Video is also being used with radar for advanced driver assist
and safety systems. A leading proponent of this approach is U.K.-
based Conekt, a consultancy arm of TRW Automotive. Originally
known as the Lucas Research Centre, it began putting radar on
cars in the 1960s. It developed vision-based systems for lane and
obstacle detection in 1991 using transputers and DSPs.

In fact, in 1994, it demonstrated a vehicle
on a public highway that could keep
itself in the lane and follow the speed of
traffic using radar and video without a
driver’s hands and feet. Conekt produces
both short-range 24-GHz and long-range
77-GHz systems for adaptive cruise control
and lane-departure warning.

STMicroelectronics NV in Switzerland
and Mobileeye NV in the Netherlands
have sampled the second-generation
system-on-a-chip (SoC) for automotive
vision-based driver-assistance systems, the
EyeQ2 chip.

It features real-time visual recognition
and scene interpretation, pedestrian
detection, lane-departure warning, adaptive
headlight control, traffic-sign recognition,
collision avoidance, and forward
warning—all within one processor. A
first-generation product, the EyeQ1, is in
production on GM’s Cadillac and Buick
models, as well as Volvo’s XC90, V70, S80,
and XC70 and the BMW 5 series.

The EyeQ2 increases processing power
sixfold over the EyeQ1. “The EyeQ2’s
detection capabilities, even in harsh environments,
allows for both notification and
crash mitigation, increasing safety for road
users dramatically,” says Marco Monti,
STMicroelectronics’ vice president for the
Automotive Product Group.

Vision is proving useful for a wide range
of automotive applications, according to
Kyocera. Using some six to 10 viewer and
sensor cameras per car can provide a comprehensive
range of safety, comfort, and
control applications (Fig. 5).

Vision systems are also being used to
provide drivers with a view of backing up
and who’s behind them, how close they are,
and how fast something is approaching,
providing them with an additional level of
safety and control. However, many of these
vision systems, as well as systems based on
ultrasonic sensors, require cutouts of the
back bumper for their use. As an alternative,
Visteon and 3M Corp. joined forces
on a concept that eliminates the use of rearbumper
cutouts by using capacitive sensors
mounted behind the bumper.

The new system works by sensing the
electrical capacitance in an area behind the
bumper and then infers resistance from
the capacitive output. By calculating the
resistance, the backup system knows it’s
approaching an object. Of course, this
approach doesn’t allow drivers to see vehicles
behind them and their driving manner,
although it makes for safer and less expensive
intelligent parking assistance.

KEEPING AN EYE ON THE DRIVER/
One way to increase driver safety with
vision systems is to monitor driver behavior
using in-car mounted cameras that operate
on a 24/7 basis. That’s just what DriveCam
Inc. offers. For $75 a month, its system
monitors reckless driving by teenage drivers.
The system uses a very sophisticated
algorithm that monitors a three-axis accelerometer,
along with a GPS signal and car
speed data, to determine whether or not
the risk of an event would make it valuable
enough to a trainer to warrant uploading
event data.

“We have a video buffer so we can see
what the driver sees and what the driver
does before, during, and after a triggered
event. Our Risk Predict algorithm then
screens the recorded events, so we just
upload those that were, in fact, risky,” says
Peter Ellegaard, DriveCam’s vice president
of hardware and firmware engineering.

Ultimately, vision sensing combined
with the proper algorithms can be tied into
a vehicle’s adaptive cruise control and
adaptive braking system to recognize traffic
signs and signals. It can provide the
driver with advanced warning signals (Fig.
6). This has been demonstrated by a number
of tier 1 suppliers, including Siemens
VDO (now Continental).